‘Both contenders may herald further turbulence. An Islamist president will face a mistrustful army, while a victory by a Mubarak-era general will rile the revolutionaries on the street.’

and from Garfinkle’s piece:

No one knows where this will all lead. The satyrs of history are on the loose again. Many say that, after Tahrir Square, Egypt will never be the same. And that is true: Egyptians have dared to dream that things could be different, better, and that their own hands and hearts could make a difference. But most likely, in two or three years’ time Egypt will look for all practical purposes very much the same as it did before the so called revolution’

‘What we are seeing in the streets of Cairo is less a revolution seeking to take shape than a haggling process. The leaders of the Egyptian political parties want to be able to choose all the parliamentary candidates through naming them to parliamentary lists. That would make party leaders the chief power brokers in a parliamentary regime. The military wants more MPs to be elected as individuals, weakening the parties and making it easier for the real powers in the country to manipulate the parliamentary process.’

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Update: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Mursi claims victory with 52% of the vote…we’ll see how this goes from here as the military is unlikely to transfer power to the office of the Presidency. Where has there been a deep transformation in Egyptian society…deep enough to embark on a bold new path of representative government?:

The Shafiq campaign rejected Morsi’s claim of victory and accused him to trying to “usurp” the presidency or lay the groundwork to challenge the official result if it shows Shafiq winning

A more tense relationship has developed between the Muslim Brotherhood and the Supreme Council Of The Armed Forces, which is essentially running the country.

As Murad Mohamed Aly, a Morsi campaign official, told me, “The Egyptians did not revolt to get rid of Mubarak … to get another Mubarak — Shafiq or someone.” And this same logic could apply to Amr Moussa, Mubarak’s former foreign minister who currently leads most national polls. “We have strong doubts that Egyptians will elect someone who is connected to the previous regime,” said Aly. “If [Moussa is elected] through interference, we will protest.”

‘What we are seeing in the streets of Cairo is less a revolution seeking to take shape than a haggling process. The leaders of the Egyptian political parties want to be able to choose all the parliamentary candidates through naming them to parliamentary lists. That would make party leaders the chief power brokers in a parliamentary regime. The military wants more MPs to be elected as individuals, weakening the parties and making it easier for the real powers in the country to manipulate the parliamentary process.’

‘Western countries will only intervene if the Assad regime escalates its killing, or there is a massacre on the scale of Srebrenica. According to my sources, the regime actually regulates how many should be killed per day. At the beginning of the armed uprising, the number was about 50; after the assault on the Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs, the number increased to 100. Assad knows that if he commits a large-scale massacre, he will trigger intervention. So if the numbers climb to 30,000 or 40,000 dead, or many thousands are killed at once, then you may see the international community act. Syria may also provoke its neighbors — similar to what happened last week, when Syrian troops fired across the border into a Turkish refugee camp’

Is continuing COIN (counterinsurgency) possible without a long-term commitment? Is advise and assist part of a withdrawal trajectory, harming our troops ability to do their jobs? Is a negotiated settlement even possible with a timeline? Good discussion.

I doubt the public apology from the President will have the intended effect. Maybe advise and assist was just a cover for withdrawal, a bump on the road to the currently planned way out. There is a high likelihood of leaving Afghanistan much as we found it: very poor and tribal, wracked by conflict, and a strategic backyard for other interests. The Taliban and other militia groups could gain back political control, making it hard to have enough political stability for greater economic opportunity (the Chinese will likely just take what they need, capitalizing on our efforts). A space for terrorist activity could appear again which neither the Jirgas nor the current Afghan government would have incentive/interest enough to stop, even if they could.

Tom Ricks offers a possibly new strategy, but the underlying logic remains: no sitting U.S. President can allow a place where known terrorists have safe haven to plot and carry out attacks on our soil, without taking some action.

‘There is a correlation, I’ve noticed, between the volume of mosques’ loudspeakers in a country and its radical Islamists’ ambitions and aggressive claims to power. Thirty-three years ago, one of the first hints of rising religious despotism in Iran was the sudden increase in the volume of loudspeakers in every neighborhood mosque. Piety was no longer private and voluntary, but public and mandatory.’

‘Having worked within the Iranian government for nearly 30 years, and having sat on the secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for much of the decade before 2005, I was involved in discussions about both of these two approaches.’

and he claims the door to diplomacy was open, but is now closing:

‘These statements are clear evidence that Obama’s engagement policy has failed. In fact, they support Ayatollah Khamenei’s assessment that the core goal of U.S. policy is regime change.’

Well, to some extent, regime change is the goal in some quarters (and I could well understand that the Iranian leadership recognizes this as an existential threat). Most Americans probably don’t understand Iranian society very well, let alone the more repressive and theocratic elements of Iranian leadership.

‘There is a peaceful path — one that will satisfy both Iranian and U.S. objectives while respecting Iran’s legitimate nuclear rights.’

It is a very mutually suspicious, often hostile relationship, and as long as Washington maintains that it can’t let Iran can’t go nuclear, there will probably be an impasse. Peace can be an overused word, and from Washington’s perspective, peace in the Middle East might be better served by not having Iran acquire nuclear capabilities. Avoidance of a costly war, however, is definitely worth thinking about on both sides.

The General died of natural causes, and Ricks briefly address the Daniel Davis piece.

‘That said, friends of mine point out that the article is longer on charges than on specifics. Also, despite the breathless tone of the New York Times article about Davis, one friend points out that the officer is hardly a newcomer to dissent, having written opinion columns frequently for the Washington Times.’

‘There is general agreement in the United States on two points. First, an Iranian nuclear weapons capability is “unacceptable”, as both the Bush and Obama Administrations have put it; and second, we prefer getting to an acceptable outcome without using force.’

and

‘In any case, if the United States decides to attack Iran it should certainly look before it leaps and prepare itself for a hard landing. Above all, U.S. leaders should not underestimate the scope or misread the broad nature of war and should therefore organize the U.S. government in advance to prosecute it coherently.’

Perhaps they will collapse of their own weight before they get the bomb? Perhaps not. There’s more talk about conflict lately.